Cornyn: Judge Kavanaugh a ‘Thoughtful and Willing Public Servant’

Following President Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court last night, I discussed the Senate’s confirmation process moving forward on the Senate floor. Excerpts of my floor remarks are below, and video can be found here. 

We know he's had a distinguished academic and legal career...Most importantly, and as evidence of Judge Kavanaugh's good judgment, he made the wise decision to marry a Texan.

The Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Grassley, will thoroughly vet the nominee, and then the Committee will debate and vote on the nomination, and then the nomination will come to the floor of the Senate.

We have already heard some say that there is not enough time to carry out this process before the midterm election…Both Judge Gorsuch, by the way, and Justice Sotomayor were confirmed 66 days after they were nominated, so the truth is we have plenty of time.

In the coming weeks, we will hear a lot about Judge Kavanaugh's interesting life story, about his long career as a dedicated public servant, his service to his community, and, yes, his strong Catholic faith. But at the end of the day, the decisions of the Supreme Court should not be affected by personal agendas, political or otherwise.

We have seen activists already encourage members of the Senate to abandon civility and decorum, and I hope we resist. We have seen some of our colleagues already engage in various publicity activities and talk about battle lines being drawn as if this was some sort of war to be fought… It's about kowtowing to a political base that demands opposition at all costs and at all terms.

Some of our colleagues will demand that Judge Kavanaugh reveal how he would rule in a particular case in exchange for their vote… It would be wrong for any judge without hearing the case - the arguments of the lawyers, the facts of the case - to prejudge an outcome.

Justice Ginsburg gave what I think is the correct response to such requests, saying she would offer no hints, no forecasts, no previews of her rulings.

We will not back down. We will not surrender the field to those who make unjustified criticisms of the nominee or attribute to him some characteristic or some experience which is entirely false. We will defend the record of Judge Kavanaugh, who I believe is a thoughtful and willing public servant, against deliberate attacks to denigrate him. We will not allow others to distort the nature of his previous judicial decisions or use him as a sacrificial lamb in some sort of vengeance campaign against this president.

Let's be dignified about it. Let's not engage in unnecessary name calling or falsely attribute to the nominee beliefs that he does not have or make wild, unhinged predictions about what may happen to the Supreme Court were he to be confirmed.